r/F1Technical • u/jtebbutt • May 06 '24
Regulations Did Max violate the newish Safety Car restart rule put in place because of him? It looks like the nose Max's car is not behind the back of Lando's car when Lando takes off. Am I missing something?
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May 06 '24
I think he did, but because he didn’t pass Norris when they got going, they simply let it pass.
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u/Twistedjustice May 07 '24
This is of course the correct answer, but I wonder what would be the threshold for them to activate the penalty?
Max didn’t catch him into turn 1, is that it, all over? What if he’d been close enough to force Lando to go defensive into turn 1? Similarly, what if Lando had chosen that moment to warm up his tyres and weaved into Max?
As an aside, watch the live footage, it certainly looked like Verstappen went along side, but I wouldn’t want to state that conclusively without some different/better angles.
Personally I think the FIA should review and if Max did go along side, issue a warning and clarify the rules for the whole grid
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u/jimmycoola May 07 '24
If his nose passes the plane of lando's rear at the restart line, hes breaching the rule.
As for lando weaving and hitting max, that would be on max for following too close. Same as lance ramming dani ric
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u/Benlop May 08 '24 edited May 08 '24
I do not believe that's how the rule works, but I'm having a hard time finding it atm.
I believe you're not allowed to go alongside another car at all, not just "at the restart line" (by which I suppose you mean the control line).
EDIT so, article 55.14, as usual, is vague and badly written, but there were diagrams attached in co junction with said article 55.14 in last year's Event Notes at every track showing that any part of the car alongside is a no no, and that's from the moment the lights on the safety car go out. No mention of the control or SC2 lines.
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u/FrowningMinion May 07 '24
Yeah exactly, what if he forces Lando to go defensive in turn 1 and it snowballs from there to allow Max to overtake later in the lap?
Also more generally, should penalties be entirely consequence based? Max clearly “intended” to break the restart rule and get an advantage - is that automatically 100% fine just because he didn’t succeed in this instance?
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u/Religion_Of_Speed May 07 '24
"the outcome doesn't determine the penalty" eh?
I caught the same thing live and was waiting for the penalty to come but nobody ever mentioned it again and honestly kinda forgot about it until now.
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May 07 '24
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May 07 '24
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u/isved1 May 07 '24
You don't get a track limits penalty before a few warnings and a black and white flag.
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u/scrndude May 07 '24
Drivers can exceed track limits 3 times without penalty, the other penalty is exceeding track limits and gaining an advantage. He didn’t gain an advantage because he wasn’t racing anyone for position.
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u/Stoli_And_Tots May 06 '24
If Lando had started accelerating, then yes, he would have been violating that rule. Lando waited to accelerate, and it allowed Max enough time to get back in line behind him.
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u/zeroscout May 07 '24
Max dropping back may have put him off for Lando's dropping the hammer. May have benefited Lando and impaired Max.
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u/Stoli_And_Tots May 07 '24
Max had a really good restart, in my opinion. He timed it well because Lando waited until the straight to accelerate. That being said, the McLaren was incredibly fast in clean air. I hope it's a sign that Red Bull may have another competitor this season.
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u/MonstrousElla May 07 '24
Max had floor damage because of the bollard that he hit. Likely cost him a bunch of time per lap. Not sure how much though, but it could have made the difference between +0.2 per lap and -0.4
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u/Yibbo0 May 07 '24
Wasn't Norris faster at the end of the last stint before the bollard ?
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u/LandoNorris05-05-24 May 07 '24
I think Max was still about 0.1 sec/lap faster than Lando before the bollard strike. There is a graph of lap times normalized to Lando floating around somewhere.
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u/omehans May 08 '24
No way, from the moment the team told him go get Sainz he was doing the fastest laps on the grid.
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u/LandoNorris05-05-24 May 08 '24
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/U8g7bKqzz5
See for yourself. The telemetry demonstrates otherwise
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u/omehans May 08 '24
Hmm yeah according to the telemetry I can only see a couple of faster or very close laps before max increases the gap
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u/LandoNorris05-05-24 May 08 '24
Those are lap times, not a gap increasing or decreasing. Lines above the orange line of Lando on the x-axis are faster lap times, lines below are slower lap times. You aren't reading the graph properly.
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u/gehoffrey426 McLaren May 07 '24
It wasn't hitting the bollard that caused damage, it was the rear of the car slamming down after going over too much of the kerb. They showed a replay somewhere and the floor just ahead of the left rear tire hit the ground hard.
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u/Gizshot May 07 '24
Idk both times the rb has been in traffic it hasn't looked as fast I think it's just the shit platform of cars
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u/Benlop May 08 '24
It's actually forbidden to go alongside another car as soon as the lights on the Safety Car go out. Doesn't matter when Lando accelerates.
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u/Synthacon May 06 '24
He totally did, and according to the rules he should’ve been penalized. Likely McLaren didn’t notify the race director because it didn’t end up ruining Lando’s start and they were focused on other things.
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u/denbommer May 07 '24
What penalty could Max receive for that?
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May 07 '24
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u/elprentis May 07 '24
I see Ocon has been replaced
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u/ekerkstra92 May 07 '24
Like F1TV commentators stated during the sprint race: Max is collecting wins for fun as Kevin is collecting penalties for fun
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u/RealTechnician May 07 '24
I still like the theory that he has some important event to attend to and wanted to get out of racing at Imola.
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u/zeroscout May 07 '24
Max dropping back put him on his back foot for the restart and gave Lando an advantage on the restart. If McLaren had called foul, it might have resulted in another restart giving Max another opportunity to beat Lando. Letting it go may have been the better choice here.
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u/Synthacon May 07 '24
I don’t think there’s any rule that would cause an aborted restart, it would just result in a time penalty.
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u/Unique_Expression_93 May 07 '24
Dude they wouldn't restart again, it's like forcing drivers that make contact to take the corner again, it makes no sense.
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u/Benlop May 08 '24
It's not how any of this works, and Max wasn't on the back foot at all on the restart either, Lando had to go defensive into T1.
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u/Athinira May 07 '24
So I just rewatched this segment from Leclercs onboard (he was behind them), and while it looks like it was certainly close, Verstappen - from what I can see - never brought his front axle completely alongside Landos rear axle.
As such, according to the race directors notes, he is not considered to be in violation of the rules, because in order to have breached the rules, he needs to bring his front axle completely alongside Landos rear axle.
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u/ExcessPixels May 07 '24
I thought this too but I think they let it slide as he wasn’t there by green light
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u/No_Tumbleweed_9102 May 07 '24
He did but he lift off before Lando got going, which even benefit Lando. There’s been moments when Max wasn’t rightfully penalized, but this is not one of them
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u/myurr May 07 '24
The race director's guidance is that you're not allowed to draw alongside, not that it's okay if you drop back.
I expect it was accidental on Max's part and that he dropped back as quickly as he could, but it is an inconsistency from the FIA not to even investigate the incident.
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u/Athinira May 07 '24
I haven't rewatched the segment, but in the picture posted, Max front wheel is still behind the rear wheel of Lando (or rear axle if you like). The guideline you posted outlaws bringing the front axle alongside the other drivers rear axle.
As mentioned, this is is just a picture, so you'd need to watch and analyze the segment again. But as long as Max axle stayed behind Landos axle, I think nothing illicit happened.
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u/myurr May 07 '24
The diagram in the linked article is explicit that the front wing / nose tip of the following car must be behind the entirety of the lead car. No overlap at all.
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u/Athinira May 08 '24 edited May 08 '24
No it's not.
It's a series of pictures, where one picture shows that "Axle to axle" is forbidden, and another picture shows that "Front wing behind rear wing" is legal.
But the pictures doesn't say anything about what is legal when a car is in a position that is somewhere between those two pictures. They leave that
When considering if something is worthy of a penalty and the rules are in a gray area, it stands to reason that the Stewards (or any other Ref in any other sport) are more like to focus on what's explicitly "forbidden". Therefore, they likely considered that a rule is only broken once the criteria for one of the "illicit" positions is fulfilled - in this case, that's "axle to axle".
That's the only logical explanation for why a penalty wasn't dished out, beyond "Stewards weren't doing their jobs".
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u/myurr May 08 '24
Consider the practicalities of showing via diagrams that zero overlap is okay but a single millimetre of overlap is not okay. Should the race director have put out a series of images showing that the car being behind gets a green tick, but moved one pixel alongside gets a cross? You cannot practically show that in a useful fashion.
The closest position shown as being okay is being entirely behind the car in front. The underlying rule being relied upon is that a driver cannot impede another behind the safety car. Being even a little alongside impedes the other driver by preventing them weaving and positioning their car where they want prior to the restart.
Drawing alongside another car, even temporarily, impedes that car. The logical explanation for why a penalty wasn't dished out is that no one complained and Max hadn't intended to impede Lando, it being a temporary mistake.
It's not a big deal, but in the strictest sense Max did get away with a minor breach of the race director's rules. If he starts routinely doing that kind of thing, or chooses to drive slightly alongside for a while instead of an obviously unintentional momentary mistake, then I'd expect him to face sanction.
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u/Athinira May 08 '24 edited May 08 '24
No. Max only breached your interpretation of the rules. You can't just claim your interpretation as the valid one, and then say that the Stewards simply must have overlooked it.
Until we have a stewards decision that says otherwise, we need to assume that he didn't break the rules, and that the other interpretation is the correct one. That's the more likely explanation than them overlooking it. I find it very unlikely that race control would have overlooked this and not noted it for investigation, if it was a breach. They notice a lot of stuff that we don't even notice.
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u/myurr May 08 '24
In my opinion you are wrong, and this is up there with passing someone off track and giving the place back. Something against the rules but allowed to be sorted out on track using stewards discretion. Max wasn't seeking an advantage and just mistimed an accelerate / brake cycle as he tried to warm the tyres, so they let it slide. Had he sat with part of his nose alongside Norris's car then IMHO he would have been penalised.
We're going to have to agree to disagree. It's not a hill I'm going to die upon as it's utterly irrelevant in the scheme of things, but I'd put money on this not being something we see drivers start to routinely do from here on out. If you are right then we'll see many more instances each time the safety car is deployed, particularly now they all know that's how it is to be interpreted.
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u/A_Milford_Man_NC May 07 '24
He 100% did and I also flagged that live.
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u/Markyp-1 May 07 '24
It should at least have been “restart infringement, noted” even if stewards decided against no penalty..
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u/thelostzelda May 07 '24
Well the safety car also picked up the wrong car too. so ignoring a foot of extra distance that didn't hinder norris was probably the least they could do considering the amount of tire cool down that was caused for everyone other than norris.
Since neither max nor norris cared in the end (and they would have been the most effected) it's better left as is.
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u/Apennatie May 07 '24
It was a split second and not deliberate. This is a still without context. If we start penalizing small stuff like this they'd better off just not racing at all.
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u/Startinezzz May 07 '24
Accidentally breaking the rules, even momentarily, is still breaking the rules...
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u/Brando6677 May 07 '24 edited May 08 '24
It’s a rule put in place to not have this happen
Why put the rule there if you’re not going to penalize people for it?
lol alright then downvote me for being reasonable. Take the rule out if you’re not going to act on it they’ve literally taken race wins back months after they occurred.
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u/_Ron-Swanson_ May 08 '24
Some of y’all are really hating drivers and are picking on the dumbest and smallest of things like damm just let them race
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u/RJH311 May 07 '24
Saw that as well and thought the same. Nothing came of it, but if it did there would have been questions
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u/Brain-Doctor May 19 '24
Max violated the safety car rule like crazy in Abu Dhabi 2021. He was literally side by side with Hamilton when he should have been behind him at the restart. I always thought that it was nuts no one said anything about that. Multiple times he pulled along side Lewis and nearly overshot him a couple of times.
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u/DamnItJon May 06 '24 edited May 07 '24
Is there any indication that Lando may have braked, leading to Verstappen pulling alongside?
Edit: Or slowed down?
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u/linkheroz May 06 '24
From what I recall, that was out of a hairpin, I think Max anticipated Lando going then, he didn't so had to back off and dropped behind.
He didn't pass Lando, so nothing needed to be done about it anyway. He wasn't there constantly and harassing him.
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u/Jimmy_Jurqinoff May 07 '24
Lando went before the hairpin, saw Max was awake and then tried again after the hairpin. That was a little naughty,
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u/EV-Bug May 07 '24
"That was a little naughty,"
That was racing! He must have seen some NASCAR restarts. He was up against a competitor that has used all of the tricks of the trade.
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u/cwanja May 07 '24
Sorry if this is off topic for this specific thread, but what is the "rules" for a restart under a safety car? I know the safety car has to end and clear the immediate track ahead of the drives, but what is the "start" of the race again? I have seen races where the graphics and screens on track are showing green flags and drives are limping along. Is it just whenever the race leader wants to go? Or is there a line (I see in the photo attached here) or sector marker that "starts" the race again? Thanks.
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u/SkidTrac May 07 '24
After the safety car clears the pack the leader of the race controls the speed of the entire group up until the start/finish line. In other words he moves slowly at his discretion to tighten up the pack and he decides when to take off to resume racing under the green flag. While this is happening no overtakes are allowed and they must stay behind one another until they pass the start/finish line, which is the rule Verstappen has violated as you can see in the picture.
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u/jimmycoola May 07 '24
Correct, however its the safety car line, not the start/finish line. Normally this is just before pit entry but it changes at each track
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u/LittleJimmyR May 07 '24
Once safety car turns its lights off P1 has to keep the pace of the field, they can’t slow down or speed up until pace car is in pit lane and green flags are shown. (Note that they cannot slow down at any time once they have control).
Once they have committed to going under green (put throttle down) they can’t lift while still being behind the control (S/F) line.
You can’t pass until the control line.
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u/Styleyriley May 07 '24
Whenever 1st place decides to go after green, or when they get to the start/finish line.
I believe that's the rule
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u/Fordmister May 07 '24
Feels to me like its very much a letter of the law Vs spirit of the law situation.
Like I'm almost certain the new regulation wasn't written with the Intention of "you so much as dip a wheel past your opponents back axle because he moves slower out of a corner than your expecting your getting a pen" but rather "get you know that thing max does where he crawls all over the back of the car ahead at safety car restarts and gets right alongside them to try and put the other guy off? We don't think that's very safe so here's a reg to stop you doing that"
It's unlikely they ever planned on penalising drivers for the minor error max made at this restart, it's just notable as the reg was written specifically for something max was up to, so you're almost pre programmed to watch him at restarts to see if he does it again.
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u/SpareSurprise1308 May 07 '24
Also ignoring the fact that being along side another car on the restart usually isn't even that good putting you off the racing line.
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u/VR46bets May 07 '24
There was a moment of overlap, but i think it was before Lando took off, and max was backing out of it when the green flag sign came up and then went behind Lando as necessary. I don’t think it was a slam dunk violation or it was really very close and then didn’t make a move on Lando. If teams protested it possibly could have been investigated. Also Leclerc almost had Max after the restart so that’s probably why Ferrari also didn’t raise the topic.
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u/dabMasterYoda May 07 '24
I was shouting this at my tv when it happened, my understanding of the rules were that this was explicitly not allowed whether he passes Lando or not.
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u/second-last-mohican May 07 '24
They have the data, the can probably see he lifted/braked. No penalty needed, hard racing is what the drivers want, not o.t.t penalties
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u/second-last-mohican May 07 '24
They have the data, the can probably see he lifted/braked. No penalty needed, hard racing is what the drivers want, not o.t.t penalties
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May 07 '24
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u/scwmcan May 07 '24
They are still under safety car rules until the leader reaches the start/ finish line , the leader takes over controlling the pace and is the de facto safety car, there can be no passing until they reach the line.
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u/Critical-Rhubarb-730 May 07 '24
its a bit difficult.. Lando is not allowed to change speed. If he accelerates the restart has begun. You have to look at the data to see if he slowed or max had some overspeed. Only then you can make a decision.
Not sure if the line in the picture is the sc line.. i guess not.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 May 08 '24
I read the comments and while a lot of people are kind of write here... The update rules really were supposed to stop this.
It effected how Lando restarted in my view. I am all for being on the ball and right there for when the leader restarts but the bullying aspect is the danger they are supposed to be avoiding to avoid crashes.
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u/Jakokreativ May 07 '24
I think because lando didn’t accelerate right after that they let it pass because if anything he got a disadvantage through this
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May 07 '24
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u/scwmcan May 07 '24
Except the leader controls the pace until the reach the start finish line, and there can be no passing until then as they are still under safety car rules, but don’t let facts get in your way.
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u/beneoin May 07 '24
I guess you're missing the safety car line shown at the right of the photo. "no driver may overtake another car on the track, including the safety car, until he passes the Line (see Article 5.3) for the first time after the safety car has returned to the pits." The green flag comes out when the SC hits the line. "As the safety car is approaching the pit entry road the SC boards will be withdrawn and, other than on the last lap of the sprint session or the race, as the leader approaches the Line the yellow flags will be withdrawn and a green flag and/or green light panel will be displayed at the Line."
To answer OP's question though, in 2022 they issued some clarifications to rule 55.14, notably "The diagram makes it clear that any safe car positioning with no overlap created by any part of the car, including the nose, is considered acceptable regardless of timing." So Max is in the clear here.
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u/MolossusDaz May 07 '24
He, plus all others are meant to be behind the car in front, not on the side - which Max clearly violated.
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May 07 '24
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u/deff006 May 07 '24
Why would we talk about it anyway? That was during the SC and sure, it gave him a free pitstop but that wasn't his fault. If Max can get a WDC thanks to a timely SC then Lando deserves at least a race win.
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u/Juggernaut024 May 07 '24
Ofcourse it was not his fault. Does not prove me wrong. Ofcourse he deserves a victory, does not prove me wrong. All F1 fans were glad to see him get a first victory, including me. Yet still does not prove me wrong.
If you gain 20+ seconds on your direct opponent during a SC, something is going wrong. No matter who the drivers are.
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u/jacksonRR May 07 '24
How was that gifted?
The SC came out after Lando and before P2. When the track was safe to overtake the SC, the rest of the pack could overtake and regroup with P1.
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u/Juggernaut024 May 07 '24
Because p1 gained over 20 seconds on p2 during a safety car.(Which gave p1 free pitstop he still needed) Cant blame p1, cant blame p2. FIA is to blame. I dont get it why im getting so much dislikes. Its not like im saying anything untrue. Just unpopular because of the p1s first time. Just remove the names and im totally right.
Before P1's stop. There was a 11 second difference. Which turned into 30+ because of the safety car. That gave P1 a free pitstop.
Rewatch the race and you will see im not wrong.
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u/jacksonRR May 07 '24
It was just a coincidence, nothing more. No one gifted anyone anything. I watched the whole race. Things like this are not uncommon and can happen during any SC phase.
Norris adhered to the speed limit under SC, which is higher than the SC's actual speed, which allowed him to increase the difference to p2.
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